Affordable health care for all is an important goal. Let’s have an adult conversation about how to fund it.

Greg Davids’ May 26, 2014, commentary about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ignored an important issue - if we value something, we should provide money for it. During the end of the last Minnesota legislative session, Representative Kelby Woodard proposed reimbursing school districts for additional costs of ACA. The most common job titles to be affected will be paraprofessionals, food/nutrition service workers, custodians, and ECFE/child care workers.

Most school district employees, who will receive employer-paid health insurance under ACA, work only 30-35 hours per week. We depend upon these reliable workers to keep our schools going. Greg Davids wrote that providing health care to these valued staff through their job is “a waste.”

Why would Greg Davids think these valuable employees do not deserve health care benefits at work, but that he is entitled to taxpayer-provided coverage? He has consistently spoken against the ACA. Both the ACA and MNSure are works in progress, just as Medicare and Social Security were and still are. For the benefit of all, we must keep improving the implementation of the ACA and MNSure. That is what we expect in an evolving, dynamic society.

Elizabeth Mitchell

Lanesboro, MN

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